Subgenus Ellobius. Included, with reservation, in E. talpinus by Corbet (1978c), an assignment contradicted by chromosomal data and breeding results that reveal its closer relationship to E. tancrei, with which it is parapatric (Corbet, 1984; Lyapunova et al., 1990, and references therein); provisionally placed in that species by Pavlinov and Rossolimo (1987).